We are grateful to Dr. Angelika Lorenz for the attribution, made on the basis of a transparency, and to Dr. Peter Ilisch for identifying the coins. He points out that they originate from the Brandenburg area in Franken and can be identified with those found specifically in Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. The chamfered coin on the right, with a man in profile, depicts Heinrich der Jüngere von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, minted circa 1555. The coin in the middle, with the double profile, depicts Albertus Alcibiades von Brandenburg-Bayreuth with Georg von Brandenburg-Ansbach; similar mints are datable circa 1538-54.

The depiction of the coins would seem to locate the portrait's origin to the Franconian Nürenberg area. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the appearance of the silver goblet, another work typical of the same area in the early sixteenth century.

Nicolas Neufchâtel was himself active in Nürenberg from 1561 to around 1567, and Dr. Lorenz dates the present work to this period. He painted portraits of local patricians and merchants, usually unsigned. Most are half length portraits, in which he draws both upon the traditions of Dutch and Italian portraiture. Similar works by Neufchâtel can be seen in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürenberg and the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva (see R.P. Peltzer, Nicolas Neufchâtel und seine Nurenberger Bildnisse, Münchner Jahrbuch, NF111, 1926, pp. 187ff).